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Possibly the best game Nintendo has released, ever. Yeah, I know, that’s a heavy claim. But it might be true.

Now for years, I’ve been a staunch supporter of “A Link to the Past” as the best Zelda game ever. There are plenty of people that say that “Ocarina of Time” is the best. I’m not even willing to entertain those people. I will accept arguments for other Zelda titles holding spots above “A Link to the Past”, but not Ocarina. The problem with “Ocarina of Time” is that it’s a flawed game, development-wise. A Link to the Past has no flaws (we can argue that another time).

But that’s not what this is about! This is about “Breath of the Wild” being the best Zelda game ever made. Is it? I don’t know yet. But after only playing for about 30 minutes, I found myself uttering that statement to myself. I couldn’t believe the thoughts and feelings I was having. I felt like I was cheating on myself somehow; that somehow these thoughts weren’t true and were simply alien in nature, placed there by outside forces. After 25+ years, has something finally trumped the vaunted The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out. Either way, I can’t get enough of this game.

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I’ve been playing Xenoblade Chronicles X a lot lately and I think it’s a great game, though not without its flaws. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. Today, it’s about censorship. There’s really no point to anything I have to say. It’s just some stuff that crossed my mind, so if you’re busy, or looking for a more socially relevant story, feel free to go read something else. But if you came on the internet today, like so many others, to waste time, then please, read on.

Now when a game gets localized here from Japan, I expect there to be a good deal of changes and aspects censored because of this country’s outdated puritanical beliefs that the human body is shameful and that seeing any parts of it exposed is a corrupting force.

Typical mother of an 11 year-old boy – “Oh no way! This game has nudity in it. You can’t play that. What about this one though? This just has offensive language and mindless violence. That is far less offensive than the body nature gave us”

Anyway…the 2 main things that I discovered they censored are what drove me to write this.

1) During character creation of a female avatar, in the Japanese release, aside from changing their height, you can also adjust their bust size. Why remove this? Why have it in there in the first place for that matter? Well that one I can answer rather easily – It’s either fan service or if you’re creating an avatar for a game where you have a ton of customization options, why not have a wider range of options you can customize? But in this case, since there are really not too many options for character customization I would say it’s purely for fan service. Still though, why remove it? Probably because someone out there would complain that it “gives girls an unrealistic image of what the female form is supposed to look like,” or some other BS like that. Whatever. Get over it. It’s a video game. It’s a fantasy world where people can escape to. If some lonely, “hopeless romantic” gets his or her (let’s not discriminate now, women love tits too) jollies by running around an alien planet as a big busted bombshell, then let them have their fantasy.

Japan – that 2nd bar is for the bust size

America

2) The female characters in the game all have “armor” sets that are basically strips of fabric passing for underwear. One of the main characters in the game, Lin, is a 13 year-old, young girl. In the Japanese version, she, just like the other female characters, has this revealing armor. Her avatar was censored so that when equipping these particular pieces of armor, it would have a more modest appearance. As much as I think that censoring things is stupid, I also think that sexualizing 13 year olds is awful. I don’t see the point in censoring something in a video game, but then again I also don’t see the point of programming young girls to have sexy clothing unless you’re a sick pervert….but #japan

Just over 3 weeks away. This is my #1 game this year. I honestly did not think I would be THIS excited about it. I thought I was tired of the whole Dynasty Warriors formula, but you know what? This really works for me. Digging the heavy metal Zelda.

What I’m even MORE excited about is Square Enix and Sony’s announcement of a limited edition metal slime PS4, which will probably never reach the states.

And of course the announcement of Dragon Quest Heroes! Oh joy of joys! For those who know me, you know I love me some Dragon Quest. Another Dynasty Warriors cross over spin-off, and a first for the Dragon Quest series, stepping outside of their standard RPG style. And will also probably never reach the states.

I got a chance to play Hyrule Warriors yesterday. It was excellent. It didn’t disappoint me at all. Granted I only got to play it for about 10 minutes, but everything I experienced was fantastic. It’s not so much that the game is flawless in it’s execution, it does have its problems, but it does exactly what I wanted it to. It kicks ass. It’s heavy metal Zelda. I remember the first time I ever played Dynasty Warriors I thought to myself, “I didn’t know they had electric guitars during the Three Kingdoms Era in China.” And I was sold immediately. No different with Hyrule Warriors. Classic Zelda tracks remixed with heavy metal guitars. It’s just fun. No mucking about in unforgiving dungeons, or frying brain cells trying to solve puzzles (not that those things are bad), it’s just constant nonstop action. Something that Zelda has never done before. Which I have no problem with, but I fear this game may fail to find it’s place in the market.

One thing Zelda games have not really had a problem with is suffering from franchise fatigue. -See Call of Duty, Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero- It’s what happens when you release too many games from the same franchise too quickly without enough variation from game to game. A new Zelda release takes its time and at least attempts, if not always successful, to try to change the gameplay elements with each release. But they always, for the most part, have the same core elements to their gameplay. Hyrule Warriors being so vastly different, I feel it has a very specific niche to fill. For starters, it’s much more for the hardcore gamer, which aren’t generally found playing the Wii U. Dynasty Warriors has always been Xbox or PlayStation. And for fans of classic style Zelda games, I know the feeling of “But this isn’t MY Zelda game” is out there, and they may feel underwhelmed by the repetitive hack and slash combat, mourning the lack of adventuring and dungeon delving. It’s still Zelda, it’s just a new way of playing it. I know Nintendo wants to get more serious with their games. Hopefully this is a glimpse of what is to come. The release date, I think, is also not the best timing. It’s being released right around some other lumbering behemoths, such as Destiny. It’s likely to be overshadowed and should have had a more isolated release date.

Why does even concern me? Because I want Nintendo to be king again god dammit! I fucking love Nintendo and it saddens me to see them stumble. Yeah the Wii was a piece of trash, but the Wii U is great and there’s some great content coming out for it. I know this game is going to be awesome and I want others to share my joy. I don’t want teenaged to twenty-something males to feel emasculated playing on a Nintendo console anymore. It actually makes me sad when I see 12 year olds and all they want to play is Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. A game doesn’t need to have guns in it just to be fun to play. But that’s a discussion for another time.

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For the past few hours I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the trial of Dragon Quest X to work on my PC. Download it and install it. Right, sounds easy enough. But too bad the whole friggin thing is in Japanese and I had to create a Japanese Yahoo account, which itself took around 2 hours. You know those, ‘captcha’ things they use to authenticate you’re a real person when creating an account for something or posting on a forum? Well I had to do one of those in Hiragana and I spent way too much time staring at symbols that mean nothing to me. Anyway, I finally got it to download and install and now the updater is at…5%…

So I happened to have a NES cart of, “Where in Time is Carm Sandiego” sitting on my desk in front of my this whole time and I had my daily epiphany (I don’t really have daily epiphanies). That’s supposed to be Carmen stealing the crown from some olde tyme aristocracy. Why, throughout my entire youth when this game was relevant (was it ever relevant?) did I not realize what this picture was SUPPOSED to be? I always thought it was just a bunch of people dressed up in periodic clothing to let you know the game was about time travel. Never did it dawn on me that Carmen had uncrowned a noble and absconded with the treasure while armed guards do NOTHING. And is she even really trying to get away? So let’s analyze this picture:

Woman in red – She’s actually dead and not really there. That’s why no one noticed her dismay and calls for help when Carmen came in to take the crown. This is where M. Night Shyamalan got his idea for the 6th Sense.

Man on Left – he is a dandy fop and unable to act

Pregnant Woman – initially I thought she had just fainted, but by her body language and angle of leaning, you can tell she’s beginning to go through contractions. The placement of the gentleman’s hands behind her lends an idea of her condition as he seems to be gently holding her mid torso, making sure to not wrap fully around her stomach. Also, it’s obvious her water broke and is evaporating from the heat given off by Carmen’s time machine

Man on Right – he’s attending to the pregnant wench

Guard on Left – Is posing for a picture. Since the first cameras took 10+ minutes to take a picture, he has to stand around looking assertive until it’s finished. Also, they’re not invented for several hundred years later.

Guard in back – May or may not have Downs Syndrome. It’s typical of those with such a disorder to become confused easily under stressful situations and are ill equipped emotionally to deal with them appropriately. Hence this man’s fearful, yet menacing gesticulations. BTW, who gave him a sword?

Carmen Sandiego – What the hell is she riding? I would want to say it’s some sort of motorcycle, but I’m not sure there are any wheels. It looks as if it’s got some sort of Knight Rider-esque front frame, but instead wheels it appears to be mounted on a roman column. As a kid, being a fan of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and having knowledge of their method of time travel, this method seemed no less strange to me. But recently I noticed that her legs are actually placed up beside her like riding a bike and now it doesn’t make sense. How is she supposed to make a swift get away when her vehicle of choice doesn’t appear mobile. I suppose it doesn’t matter when you under assault from guards of this nature.

They were already toying with the idea of bringing this game to our shores, so if they see that enough people are willing to buy it, it’s more likely to happen. Nintendo of America had already been talking about the possibility of porting Xenoblade when the petition for that began. Reggie Fils-Aime claims that although they were aware of the petition, it had no impact on Nintendo’s decision stating that, “100,000 signatures does not mean 100,000 sales”. So what does that mean? We have to double, no, quintuple that? Well we’re a bit behind. At not even 2,500 signatures, there’s quite a bit to go. So go sign it. Let Square Enix and Nintendo know that you’ve got $60 set aside for them when the game is released here.

But not in the US. See that release date? 2012! Could have been localized by now!

Since I’m a huge fan of Dragon Quest, possibly my favorite RPG series ever, I was having a hard time waiting for Nintendo to localize Dragon Quest X here. I see dates on a few websites referencing a 2014 release date for Dragon Quest X on the Wii U, but I don’t believe it. It wasn’t even mentioned in passing at E3. I think I’ve finally come to terms that they will NEVER bring Dragon Quest X to America. I don’t understand why not. Were the sales on the DS titles really that poor? You would think a game that’s primarily online would do well here considering, on average, Americans do more online gaming than Japan especially since playing video games as an adult in Japan isn’t as socially acceptable as it is here.

I hadn’t bothered to mod my Wii yet, even though it’s relatively easy. I just never really saw the need. I don’t particularly agree with pirating games and there were no import games I thought were interesting enough to make the purchase. So I grew tired of waiting for Dragon Quest X and conceded to grabbing an import and mod my Wii. Then it became abundantly clear to me this wouldn’t be a simple matter. The 2-disc Dragon Quest X doesn’t run off the discs, they are simply for installation. But as you are all aware, the Wii has a “fun sized” hard drive. So aside from just modding the Wii to play import games, you have to install the game onto a USB flash drive. Minor inconvenience, whatever, pressing on. Now I come across the really bad news. The game isn’t just region locked, it’s ISP locked. In order to play this game, you need to be on an Japanese server provider. Yeah well, I dunno how to do that and I haven’t been able to find information on how to do that and even if I did, I think the hassle would be too extreme. You know what I think would be easier? LOCALIZING THIS FRIGGIN GAME IN AMERICA!

Now for some good news. Apparently that might happen? Square Enix is toying with the idea of expanding the game outside of Japan. Doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll get it, or even get a full version of it if we do. It’s possible we may only get an offline only version, WHICH WOULD BE TOTALLY OK! I Just NEED this game. What do you want me to do? I will suck your dick for this game! Two girls one cup? Is that what you want me to do? I’ll do it…I won’t like it, but if it gets me this game, I’ll do that….

Who wants to start a petition? Not the sucking thing. I don’t think anyone wants to see a petition for that. I mean a petition to localize this game. It worked for Xenoblade after all, right? Anyone know how to get one of those rolling?

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Ok, so E3 has been a pretty big deal this year with 2 new systems being shown off and everyone’s bashing Microsoft and arguing which system they’re gonna get, Xbox or Playstation. Well screw all that. Nintendo wins E3 as far as I’m concerned. Simple mathematical formula: Smash Bros. + Mega Man = Win. There it is, it’s science. All other arguments are invalid. I can almost, ALMOST, forgive Capcom for cancelling Mega Man Legends III….almost….

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So I just got my Wii U and bought the Pro Controller with it, because to play real games you need a real controller; Not that goofy remote and nunchuck nonsense. Not only does the controller feel completely natural to hold, but each one also comes with its own charge cable, – the PS3 Dual Shock controllers don’t – the d-pad is excellent, as it should be considering that technology was perfected over 25 years ago. (still don’t understand how Xbox screwed that one up), AND it has an unheard of 80 hour battery life!

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Last year Nintendo revealed their next home console. The Wii U was unveiled to a less than overwhelming reception and it was pretty much unanimously agreed it had the dumbest name in console history. But it was just the project codename… or so we hoped. Nintendo is now rumored to be considering a new name for the console. When I heard this, I knew there was one person I had to contact immediately.

I had the pleasure of sitting with the Nintendo prophet, Jim Peterford. Yes, THE Jimmy Peterford, who back in a 1991 issue of Nintendo Power, predicted the Wii console. Hoping that lightning would strike twice, we united our brains together until divine inspiration bestowed us with the NiRVGSCBAYSi. That is, the “Nintendo Real Video Game System Coming Back At You Suck it” (see how I worked those two lower case i’s in there like the Wii? Clever huh?) This no holds barred approach to naming is symbolic of Nintendo’s intention to show gamers that they’re back and they mean business and they’re more than just a toy for the whole family.

Peterford came up with his own artist’s rendition of what he believed the NiRVGSCBAYSi will look like. The front panel of the console itself seems to resemble a TV remote, which probably implies Nintendo is going more towards being a multifunction entertainment unit. There doesn’t appear to be any ports for inserting external media, which hopefully means there’s a substantial hard drive inside and any data transfer will be wireless. The most notable aspect of the new console is probably the controllers. Taking a more SNES look and style, the remotes are wired, forgoing the wireless motion controllers, thus restricting any sort of motion gaming programmers would throw in. Which is fine, because flailing your arms around and dancing to video games is stupid.

I’m pretty confident Jim Peterford is right on the money with this one. If our predictions are accurate, and they almost certainly are, Nintendo will once again be the top contender in the home console market for hardcore gamers.